About School of Hope

School of Hope, part of the Thembalitsha Foundation, is a registered special-needs school for Grades 9 to 12 students based in Cape Town, South Africa. They have 80 students, all with varying degrees of abuse, trauma and neglect. Whether they have spent time on the streets, been caught up in drugs, gangs and prostitution from a young age, or whether their home environments have exposed them to alcohol, sexual and physical abuse, they are all in need of a special focussed form of education and counselling.

They may be two or three years older than the other learners in their grade and therefore unsuitable for mainstream schooling in government. The School of Hope is their only chance of completing their education. They are in great need of funds to employ more specialised teachers and general costs such as food for the students.

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Packing at last!

At last it is the final week before departure.   There are so many things that I still have to do: sorting out the kids’ programmes for next week, squeezing in extra work that have to finished before I go.  I also still have to organise quite a few things for the trip which are not done yet due to some major procrastinating on my part this last month!  Travel insurance, medical insurance and the fun bit – Last Minute Shopping (LMS).
One of the things on my LMS list was buying books.  Bearing in mind that I am only allowed to take about 12 kg onto the mountain, this has been my biggest headache.  For me it was not a question of: “Am I taking a book with me?” but rather “How many books?” and the biggest problem: “How do I decide on which book/s to take?”  What would I feel like reading when I am on the mountain: Philosophy? Fiction?  Biography? Non-fiction?  Oh the choices are just endless. 
Jan obviously had to chirp from the side that if I had an I-Phone, I could have downloaded I-books and my problem would have been solved.  We have been having the Blackberry vs I-Phone debate for over a year now, and I have to admit that this is the first time ever I wished that I had an I-Phone instead of a Blackberry! 
I went ahead and started piling everything onto the dining room table. Literally weighing up all my options, I realised that if I want to take three books, something else will have to stay.  Ok, gaiters are now definitely out.  Decreasing my shirts from six to three and my trousers from five to three will equate to another book going along to the top of Africa.  We will all be smelly so who cares if I am wearing the same clothes two days in a row!  Ok, cannot leave any more clothes, so one book will have to stay.
But then my brother Dries arrived from Joburg with my rented sleeping bag.  Huge and heavy sleeping bag. ..  Now I don’t only have a weight issue, but also a size issue!!!  This sleeping bag is almost as big as my duffel bag and I am faced with a huge dilemma!  The only solutions I can think of will cost me money, ie buy a new sleeping bag or buy a new duffel bag.  Dries is quick to point out that he would not only buy a new sleeping bag, but also more clothes, extra gloves etc etc.  And the first thing he pointed out is that the books will have to stay.  Hah!  Something you need to know about Dries is that he can be classified as even crazier than me – he does cave diving.  And cave divers have backup equipment for their backups!  So in his eyes I am totally underprepared.  What to do, what to do.
Dries and Gerda (his wife) are so convinced that I am going to freeze to death on Kili, that they decide to buy me a new sleeping bag as an early birthday present.  This also allows me to go buy all those extra things!  There goes my policy about only buying whatever I am going to use again.  More last minute shopping to do.  Yippie!!!
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)